The Brautigan Library

In 1971, in his novel The Abortion, the American poet and writer Richard Brautigan imagined a library committed to lovingly receiving and preserving personal books and manuscripts of all kinds.

In 1990, this fictional library was brought to life by Todd Lockwood in Burlington, Vermont, in the United States, in the form of a collection, The Brautigan Library, which grew by 300 volumes until 1996.

Books on routine, the secrets of life, canoeing, beautiful people, performance anxiety, camping in Vermont, drugs in California, disappearing socks, hormones, celibacy, bad haircuts… Absolutely open to all non-authors, the Brautigan Library is a democratic library that allows all dispositions to find an unconditional place of conservation.

The classification system of the Library, the ‘Mayonnaise’ system, does not exactly follow the traditional categories of the Dewey classification, and focuses more on the themes of the books deposited (love, poetry, family, future, natural life, spirituality, etc.).

The Brautigan Library has become an icon, inspiring French authors such as Jean-Yves Jouannais (Artistes sans œuvres, 2009) and David Foenkinos (Le Mystère Henri Pick, 2016). Since its creation as fiction, it has provided a place of consolation and symbolic existence for works that will never be published or distributed.

This exhibition presents both research and creations by the artist and curator Marie-Pierre Bonniol, in collaboration with her mother, the naive painter Danielle Bonniol-Ferrus.

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Marie-Pierre Bonniol (b. 1978, Marseille, France) lives and works in Berlin.
Danielle Bonniol-Ferrus (b. 1941, Briançon, France) lives and works in Marseille.